In another attack against the federal workforce, Trump’s Office of Personnel Management ordered agencies to overhaul federal employee performance appraisal and disciplinary systems in violation of existing labor contracts and decades of past practice.
The changes are outlined in a memorandum to department and agency heads issued June 17 by OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell.
“These changes are a major departure from how agencies currently assess the performance of their employees and are a violation of our negotiated contracts that stipulate how workers are evaluated and disciplined,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. “This is yet another illegal attempt by this administration to eviscerate our nation’s civil service and make working conditions so untenable that federal employees will quit – opening the door for them to be replaced with workers subservient to Trump or outsourced entirely.”
The changes, for example, would eliminate the requirement to use progressive discipline to address an employee’s workplace misconduct and ban agencies from using a table of penalties to determine disciplinary actions. Not treating employees with similar violations similarly opens the door for illegal employment discrimination.
The changes would also require agencies to unfairly limit the number of employees rated at the highest performance levels and implement a forced distribution system to align individual performance ratings with overall agency performance.
“Make no mistake – these changes are not about improving working conditions or equipping employees with the tools they need to succeed. They are designed to make it easier for managers to quickly target and terminate employees they deem problematic – and make it nearly impossible for workers to fight for their jobs,” Kelley said. “AFGE is currently evaluating the memorandum and will take all appropriate actions to protect the rights of our members and all federal employees.”
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